Finalizing Floor Plan - Please Help

[ponar]

Well, construction is coming right along on my studio (Check out the Photo Journal in this thread).

I ran by a preliminary idea for the floor plan in another thread, and got some great guidance. Thanks! Well, it's coming down to game time and I need to give my builders my finalized floor plan.

HERE IT IS:


Please excuse my rudimentary SketchUp skills. Here's the basic idea: The board will be at the center of the bottom wall, and the iso room and storage room will be symmetrically sized and placed on the back wall.

My thought process is that they will help shape what would otherwise be a perfectly square room (someone mentioned they may act as quasi- bass traps), while still maintaining the symmetry of the combined live recording / control room. The upper left room will be a double-leaf iso booth, and the upper right room will be a single leaf storage area. I'll probably stack my guitar amps in the angled space between the rooms.

Whatcha think?

[tINY]

Ought to work alright - plan on adding bass traps.



-tINY

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by tINY

Ought to work alright - plan on adding bass traps.

+1...plenty of them too. Fortunately you've got some space available to add them.

Frank

[ponar]

Originally Posted by Weasel9992

+1...plenty of them too. Fortunately you've got some space available to add them.

Frank

Thanks for the input guys.

I'm a complete newbie when it comes to room treatments. How many bass traps are we talking? What's the strategy for placement in a room like this? What's a good, inexpensive trap?

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by ponar

Thanks for the input guys.

I'm a complete newbie when it comes to room treatments. How many bass traps are we talking? What's the strategy for placement in a room like this? What's a good, inexpensive trap?

• In that room you'll want to straddle the front corners, floor to ceiling with either tri corner (superchunk) traps or with 4" panel traps (typically 2'x4').
• I'm assuming that your door is in the back of the room...is that right? You should do a 6" bass trap on the door.
• The rear portion of the room is a little problematic because you don't have much flat wall to work with. I'd say that you should put a couple of 6" bass traps on the doors to the small rooms, but I'm sure at least the iso door will have glass in it.
• How about the rear left and right corners? Is there 17" from the corners to the door jams? If so, do floor to ceiling 4" panels or tri corners there as well.
• You can either do 2" or 4" panels at the reflection points, front wall and on the ceiling over the mix position. I prefer 4" panels in all of those places for their broad band benefit.
• You can also look to trap all the wall/ceiling corners (where the wall meets the ceiling) you can, especially if those rear vertical corners aren't available.
• Diffusion would probably work well on the right and left walls near the rear of the room and on the ceiling just to the rear of your ceiling panels.

Look here for some more in-depth information.

Frank

[jwl]

Originally Posted by ponar

I'm a complete newbie when it comes to room treatments. How many bass traps are we talking? What's the strategy for placement in a room like this? What's a good, inexpensive trap?

Frank gave a comprehensive answer. In general, for how many bass traps, the answer is as many as you can afford, plus 4.

I tell customers all the time that even 2 MiniTraps is enough to make a clearly audible difference in most rooms. 8 traps seems to be the "magic number" or the top of the bell curve in performance. Ethan has more than 40 bass traps in his living room (which is larger than your room).

So again, how many traps can you afford? The more you add, the flatter your response will get.

The key is to make sure the traps you buy or build don't absorb at high frequencies, so you don't make the room too dead. You will want fully-absorptive panels at reflection points and on the rear wall, but NOT everywhere in the room like corners.

[ponar]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I need to win the lottery or something, because I've already spent almost the entirety of my budget on the construction alone.

I know that room treatment is the key to a nice sounding room, and I really appreciate the time both of you took to outline things for me. At this point, I'll probably only be able to afford a few traps. The GIK 244s seem pretty nice (and affordable). For my modest budget, would a few of these get me going?

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by ponar

Thanks for the replies, guys. I need to win the lottery or something, because I've already spent almost the entirety of my budget on the construction alone.

I know that room treatment is the key to a nice sounding room, and I really appreciate the time both of you took to outline things for me. At this point, I'll probably only be able to afford a few traps. The GIK 244s seem pretty nice (and affordable). For my modest budget, would a few of these get me going?

Yep. Like James said, it only takes a few to make a pretty significant difference. After all, that's 100% better than none, right?

Frank

[quincyg]

Originally Posted by Weasel9992

[LIST]
[*]I'm assuming that your door is in the back of the room...is that right? You should do a 6" bass trap on the door.

Frank

what kind of 6" bass trap are you talking about on the door? Seems like you would lose a lot of functionality with a 6" projection mounted to a door.

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by quincyg

what kind of 6" bass trap are you talking about on the door? Seems like you would lose a lot of functionality with a 6" projection mounted to a door.

As long as the door opens into the room and isn't 4" from the adjacent wall it'll work just fine. People do it all the time.

Frank

[tINY]

Originally Posted by ponar

Thanks for the replies, guys. I need to win the lottery or something, because I've already spent almost the entirety of my budget on the construction alone.

You can save a lot of money by rolling your own.



-tINY

[jwl]

Absolutely, tINY is right. If you have more available time than available money, then DIY is the way to go. If you just want to get something that is proven to work, and you have some budget available, then that's where folks like us and GIK come into the picture.